NO-LICENSE CAMPAIGN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 441, 7 November 1908, Page 3

NO-LICENSE CAMPAIGN.

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT,

MEDICAL TESTIMONY AGAINST INTOXICATING LIQUOR.

Sir Victor lior»ley, F.R.S., F.R.C.S. The medical profession knows well that alcohol is a potent cause ot disease, crime, poverty and death. A system of legislation should be enacted whereby the sale and use of alcohol shall be very largely prohibited and prevented. To regard alcohol as a food is a fallacy. Sir Thomas Barlow, Bart., K.C.V.O.M.D. We are all alive to the risks of morphia craving and for the craving of other sedatives, but the aggregate of mischief induced by all these sedatives is trifling compared with that induced by alcohol. As doctors we have a grave responsibility in the matter and we ought to speak out to parents both rich and poor with no uncertain sound. The late Sir William Gall, Bart., M.D., QueenlVictoria’a Physician. All alcohol and all things of an alcoholic nature injure the nerve tissues, pro tempore, if not altogether. Alcohol is the most destructive agent that we are aware of in this country, even in so-called moderate quantities. It leads to the degeneration of tissues, it spoils the health and it spoils the intellect. I hardly know any more potent cause of disease than alcohol, leaving out of view the fact that it is a frequent cause of crime of all descriptions. lam persuaded that lecturers should go about the country lecturing to people upon the disadvantages of alcohol as it is daily used. The public ought to know that of all the diluents or solvents for the nutritious parts of food there is nothing like water. Late Sir Andrew Clarke, Bart., M.D. As I looked at the hospital wards to-day and saw that 7 out of 10 owed their diseases to alcohol, I could but lament that the teaching about the question was not more direct, more decisive, more home-thrusting than ever it had been. It is when I think of all this that I am disposed, as I have said elsewhere, to give up my profession, to give up everything, and to go forth upon a holy crusade, preaching to all men “ Beware of this enemy of the race.” I would have the drunkards liberty sacrificed for the good of his family and the State and the community. Health is not a state which can in any sense be benefitted by alcohol. It can bear it sometimes without obvious injury, but be benefitted by it — never. Dr. Norman Kerr. At the present day a great many children are born with an alcoholic constitution, solely owing to the drinking propensities of their mothers. This appears to me the most perilous phase of the whole practice of drink, for here we have alcoholic or other defective systems implanted before birth. Hundreds of other testimonials from medical scientists, professors and leading surgeons and physicians declare against the use of intoxicating liquors.